Thousands of companies have successfully deployed millions of Skype for Business seats, yet many still don’t think of Skype for Business as a platform for their contact center. What they may not know is that Skype for Business is a natural fit and has significant advantages over legacy PBX platforms. Consider this: There have been more change in telephony technology in the last five years than in the last several decades, and many PBX systems are based on outdated technology. PBX hardware for contact centers will be nearly vestigial in a few years – Skype for Business will be better for your contact center in the future, even if it doesn’t look like the hardware you may be used to with phone wires sticking out of it. Here are five reasons why:

1) Multi-channel communications are here to stay

The industry has fundamentally changed as communications have gone digital – voice interactions will be in the minority as compared to new channels (e.g., IM and Web chat) by the end of 2016.1 Skype for Business was built from the ground up to support voice, IM, video, and screen sharing using the same underlying technology and user interface. It makes using separate software and devices unnecessary, and dramatically ramps up the learning curve for new agents. Think of how little sense it makes to force (and train) users to use one software for calls, another for web chats, another for internal IMs, a separate desk phone for internal calling, and then something else for email or social media or video routing. Agents get pulled in many directions, which makes them less effective at customer service. It also can lead to agents becoming overwhelmed, which can lead to high turnover.

2) The contact center is moving to the cloudThe cloud is disrupting how contact centers are deployed: in 2016, 61% of companies are planning on moving their contact center to the cloud in some form, with only 23% planning to retain technology on premises.1 Microsoft has been very focused on building cloud functionality for Office 365 – such as Skype for Business Cloud PBX. Cloud functionality like this will make it much easier for companies to switch from on-premises deployment to the cloud inthe future, and so keep their options open

3) Development and Extensibility

Skype for Business has a robust development platform that allows contact center and other third-partyvendors to automate and build on Skype for Business’s inherent capabilities to enable new features, ratherthan loosely tying together two or more separate pieces of technology to get contact center functionality.The “native” contact center solutions for Skype for Business generally don’t even require a desktop clientapplication to be deployed at all. Anyone who is a Skype for Business user can handle contact center callswithout further client-side installation – a game changer for quick setup and for mobility.

4) Mobility

It’s becoming more important to enable people to take calls at multiple locations with several devices, especiallyfor subject-matter experts who may not take calls full time. With Skype for Business, Microsoft put a great deal ofeffort into seamless and secure external access, so that users can take calls from outside the corporate networkwithout compromising security for those communications. Contact center platforms built natively for Skype forBusiness leverage these investments in mobility and security without any additional effort. With mobility optimized by Skype for Business, there are huge implications for speedy user onboarding, disaster recovery, remote workers, and workers who move around or aren’t easily reachable on a desk phone.

5) Significant cost savings

Apart from all of the advantages for users and customers, one of the most compelling reasons to useSkype for Business for contact center is purely economic. Native contact center platforms for Skypefor Business can enable all of the key contact center functionality you need without duplicating thecore call connectivity, media processing, and security infrastructure that Skype for Business alreadyprovides. Since this infrastructure is often complex, specialized, and difficult to maintain, Skype forBusiness contact centers with the same functionality may be available at a lower price point thanthe equivalent in a legacy platform loosely integrated with Skype for Business. Provisioning andmaintaining the contact center also becomes a much less burdensome proposition, eliminating theneed for additional maintenance, staffing, planning, etc. for mostly duplicate infrastructure.